The Muslims Are Coming

With the terrorist attacks in Paris and more recently in San Bernadino, the population seems to be drowning in a sea of outrage and fear. I keep expecting a modern day Paul Revere galloping down the road screaming “the Muslims are coming, the Muslims are coming!” And of course, the timing couldn’t be better for the right wing forces across the world, and here in our country in particular. Donald Trump, and many other Republicans—and some Democrats—poised for an upcoming national election, are quick to pander to these fears, suggesting such Draconian measures as closing our borders to immigrants from select countries, such as Syria, fearful of a Trojan Horse effect. Of course, anyone who has looked into what it takes to get refugee status in this country knows that it is a grueling process, with extensive prying by the FBI and Homeland Security, resulting in the possibility of maybe one terrorist making it in for every 250,000 applicants. Yeah, I know, one is two many. But you have a better chance getting killed by lighting than you do a terrorist is this country. Maybe we should stay out of the rain.

There were over 200 mass shootings in America in 2015. Two of them were perpetrated by Muslims, the rest by…well, we don’t know the religion of all the other killers, because nobody seems to want to make an issue of it. Robert Deer, the Colorado Planned Parenthood shooter was supposedly a Christian, an evangelist, who lived in a motor home and, according to his ex-wife, does not follow the Bible. So, should we stop letting Christians into this country? Or white men who live in trailers. Does Donald Trump have any issues with white Christian mass murderers? No, he, and others like him, write these individuals off as mentally unstable. But these are the people doing most of the killing.

Why are we more outraged over San Bernadino, than we are Sandy Hook or Colorado? The loss of 14 lives in San Bernadino is tragic, but every year over 30,000 Americans die from guns. Where’s the outrage over this? We tolerate all this carnage every year at the behest of the NRA and some nostalgic clinging to the second amendment, an amendment that never intended any version of our current state of weapon acquisitions allowed in this country. We tolerate small children being gunned downed in Sandy Hook, or hundreds of accidental shootings by children in the home every year. But what we won’t tolerate, is when one of those shooters is a Muslim. Then, xenophobia raises up its head. The target becomes very clear; the call goes out. “The Muslims are coming, The Muslims are coming.”